Duck & protein question:

I'm not picking on anybody, but twice recently I've seen the recommendation that too much protein for ducks can cause leg problems.

My own experiences with Muscovies, is that they need very high protein or they will get leg problems. This happened with my batch last year, they ended up not even being able to walk until I figured out their protein level was waaaay too low. Several weeks of heavily feeding sunflower seeds & worms brought them back to normal.

Is this high protein diet exclusive to muscovies? We've free ranged ducks & geese & never had this problem-until the muscovies. So generally speaking should owners keep the protein down, with the exception of muscovies? Are their other breeds that need a hight protein?

Too much protein is not good for all waterfowl. They can grow too fast causing several problems including 'angel wing' where the feathers become too heavy and the wing is deformed. Niacin is important to waterfowl and needs to be suppl;emented unless a waterfowl starter is fed. greens supply N and they need to be fed. A good quality shick starter/grower works well for waterfowl. The breeders of standard Muscovies do feed more protein to their ducks, they are much larger than barnyard types, same as for standard geese.

There are some Muscovy populations which are so inbred they have some genetic problems caused by inbreeding depression.

I had a chicken and a swan once that were fed too much protein.The swan had a terrible time the tendon slipped on what is his knee joint.he couldnt walk his joint got huge.The chicken couldnt walk.I read you start off on high protein but then cut back.

Ok, it's making sense now, because after feeding them the high protein diet, one developed an angel wing (she was a lone duckling we received from another farm), I thought it was something to do with the farm she came from, because the others did not develop the A.W. Then of course we stopped the protein after they were better, and they've been fine ever since.

The farmer I bought from explained it to me, but not in such detail, so I guess I lucked out by stopping the protein when I did.

This was the first time this ever happened here, so thank you so much for clarifying.